[Forest Keeper]

FK: If scripture is the word of God, then God determined what it was. He informed us of what scripture was by communicating it through His Church (or members thereof)

So why did it take theherarchichal clergy to figure out the puzzle (and still don't agree fully on it)?

I don't think God abdicated and left it up to anyone to figure out. It seems logical to me that if God was going to take such great care in inspiring His word to be exactly what He wanted it to be then He would also take similar care in having it assembled into one book. And while you are surely right that even today not everyone agrees on its composition, I still find it remarkable that there is agreement to the degree there is given the amount of theological disagreement between Christians on so many other issues.

FK: You're right that it didn't happen overnight, but we can be confident today that what we have contains the essence of what God wants us to know.

Unless you are Jewish or Mormon or Muslim, or Hindu...

I would think it axiomatic among Christians that the Bible wasn't assembled for the whole world but for Christians only (including future Christians).

What exactly did [the Bereans] check? To find risen Christ (the only one Paul supposedly got to know) in the Old testament? Give me a break.

The entirety of the OT points directly to Christ, so there would have been plenty to check. :) Jesus said:

John 5:45-47 : 45 “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. 46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47 But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”

FK: That's right, before any scripture was written down its truth was transmitted orally

Oh yeah? How, exactly, word for word, the same words every time? How do you know that?

I don't know if it was word for word before it was written down, but I do know it was idea for idea because what was taught was what was believed and that is what was written down and then later accepted and canonized. I would think that the writings that introduced new info from left field (and not written by a heavyweight) were the ones that were thrown out.

FK: The Apostles taught orally with authority from Christ

Who says?

Jesus did in His Great Commission.

Judaism never believed in the devil.

Daniel1212 pointed out that Moses was also an "observant Jew" (as Jesus approved of Moses' testimony about Him). If Moses testified about the correct Jesus then he testified about a Jesus who believed in the existence of satan. Therefore, the faiths of the OT righteous included knowledge of satan.

[kosta50]

I am cutitng this post into several rpelies...

I don't think God abdicated and left it up to anyone to figure out

 

Then why did it take the Church 300 years to come up with a statement of what is believed?

 

It seems logical to me that if God was going to take such great care in inspiring His word to be exactly what He wanted it to be then He would also take similar care in having it assembled into one book.

 

It wasn't one book but a collection of many books, among which were the books currently considered a canon, but so were amny currentl considered profane.

 

And while you are surely right that even today not everyone agrees on its composition, I still find it remarkable that there is agreement to the degree there is given the amount of theological disagreement between Christians on so many other issues.

 

The agreement is remarkably superficial. Scratch the surface, as I mentioned earlier, and you will find that, while Christians use the same words, they mean different things to different communities.

I would think it axiomatic among Christians that the Bible wasn't assembled for the whole world but for Christians only (including future Christians).

The Torah was assembled for Christians? The Gentiles are included only insofar as the Seven Noachide Laws are concerned. The Gentiles have no other role in In God's plan. The Torah is about the Jews and for the Jews, and Christians are not Jews.

The entirety of the OT points directly to Christ, so there would have been plenty to check. :) Jesus said: John 5:45-47...

This is like a Mormon "proving" the entirety of the OT points to Latter day Saints because the Book of Mormon says so. Moses did not write a single word about Jesus or anyone like him, except in convoluted Christian rationalizations and alterations, such as demonstrated here.

The author argues that Matthew misquotes and/or distorts Jewish prophets, contradicts other Gospels, and makes up stories by providing bible verses and references.

I am not posting his arguments (they have already been posted on FR on July 21, 2010 by another poster) because my intention is not to get into the polemics, but to simply remind you that things are not as clear cut as you seem to present them.

I don't think God abdicated and left it up to anyone to figure out

 

Then why did it take the Church 300 years to come up with a statement of what is believed?

 

It seems logical to me that if God was going to take such great care in inspiring His word to be exactly what He wanted it to be then He would also take similar care in having it assembled into one book.

 

It wasn't one book but a collection of many books, among which were the books currently considered a canon, but so were amny currentl considered profane.

 

And while you are surely right that even today not everyone agrees on its composition, I still find it remarkable that there is agreement to the degree there is given the amount of theological disagreement between Christians on so many other issues.

 

The agreement is remarkably superficial. Scratch the surface, as I mentioned earlier, and you will find that, while Christians use the same words, they mean different things to different communities.

I would think it axiomatic among Christians that the Bible wasn't assembled for the whole world but for Christians only (including future Christians).

The Torah was assembled for Christians? The Gentiles are included only insofar as the Seven Noachide Laws are concerned. The Gentiles have no other role in In God's plan. The Torah is about the Jews and for the Jews, and Christians are not Jews.

The entirety of the OT points directly to Christ, so there would have been plenty to check. :) Jesus said: John 5:45-47...

This is like a Mormon "proving" the entirety of the OT points to Latter day Saints because the Book of Mormon says so. Moses did not write a single word about Jesus or anyone like him, except in convoluted Christian rationalizations and alterations, such as demonstrated here.

The author argues that Matthew misquotes and/or distorts Jewish prophets, contradicts other Gospels, and makes up stories by providing bible verses and references.

I am not posting his arguments (they have already been posted on FR on July 21, 2010 by another poster) because my intention is not to get into the polemics, but to simply remind you that things are not as clear cut as you seem to present them.

I don't think God abdicated and left it up to anyone to figure out

Then why did it take the Church 300 years to come up with a statement of what is believed?

It seems logical to me that if God was going to take such great care in inspiring His word to be exactly what He wanted it to be then He would also take similar care in having it assembled into one book.

It wasn't one book but a collection of many books, among which were the books currently considered a canon, but so were amny currentl considered profane.

And while you are surely right that even today not everyone agrees on its composition, I still find it remarkable that there is agreement to the degree there is given the amount of theological disagreement between Christians on so many other issues.

The agreement is remarkably superficial. Scratch the surface, as I mentioned earlier, and you will find that, while Christians use the same words, they mean different things to different communities.

I would think it axiomatic among Christians that the Bible wasn't assembled for the whole world but for Christians only (including future Christians).

The Torah was assembled for Christians? The Gentiles are included only insofar as the Seven Noachide Laws are concerned. The Gentiles have no other role in In God's plan. The Torah is about the Jews and for the Jews, and Christians are not Jews.

The entirety of the OT points directly to Christ, so there would have been plenty to check. :) Jesus said: John 5:45-47...

This is like a Mormon "proving" the entirety of the OT points to Latter day Saints because the Book of Mormon says so. Moses did not write a single word about Jesus or anyone like him, except in convoluted Christian rationalizations and alterations, such as demonstrated here.

The author argues that Matthew misquotes and/or distorts Jewish prophets, contradicts other Gospels, and makes up stories by providing bible verses and references.

I am not posting his arguments (they have already been posted on FR on July 21, 2010 by another poster) because my intention is not to get into the polemics, but to simply remind you that things are not as clear cut as you seem to present them.

[kosta50]

I don't know if it was word for word before it was written down, but I do know it was idea for idea because what was taught was what was believed and that is what was written down and then later accepted and canonized

But we know that what was written was not all the same, as great many variant manuscripts show, and that there were errors and additions and omissions, and that Chirtsianity neither used the same books, nor preached the exact same faith for three centuries.

Just like today, they all preached Christ, their version of who and what he is. Sure, they all had some version of the Gospels, be it either the one where the Great Commission does not have the Triniatrian formula in it (as attested by Eusebius in the third century), which also the Book of Acts strongly supports, or be it the long or short versions of Luke's Gospel, or be it the Peshitta or the various 2nd century AD  attempts to bring LXX closer to the Hebrew text (Aquila, Symmachs, etc.), etc.

All this has been erased or eliminated, or conveniently forgotten, or even destroyed or buried somewhere, so as not to cause any 'confusion'.  And the myriad of other books, besides the "canonical" ones that were used by Christian apologetics were simply expunged as profane and purged from the canon, including the ones found in the oldest complete Bibles dating back to the 4th century, as if they never existed.

[FK: The Apostles taught orally with authority from Christ] [Who says?]Jesus did in His Great Commission.

And who wrote the Great Commission if not the very people who claim to teach with the authority of Christ!? This is like the Congress voting itself a pay raise.

Judaism never believed in the devil.

Moses was also an "observant Jew" (as Jesus approved of Moses' testimony about Him).

Of course he did. Written in retrospect by people vying desperately for some divine authority as they were being kicked out of synagogues as apostates and heretics by the Jewish community. Remember, this is "John" writing at the end of the first century as this was taking place. Besides, there is no Mosaic testimony of Jesus, in the minds of people capable of hyperbolic rationalizations.

If Moses testified about the correct Jesus then he testified about a Jesus who believed in the existence of satan. Therefore, the faiths of the OT righteous included knowledge of satan.

If is the operanat word here, FK. John 5:46 does not correspond to anything specific Moses wrote about Christ, unless of course one uses some pretty far out ideations. Judaism simply does not believe in satan, and never did. Apparently some heretical Jewish sects did under the influence of Zoriastrinaism.

I don't know if it was word for word before it was written down, but I do know it was idea for idea because what was taught was what was believed and that is what was written down and then later accepted and canonized

But we know that what was written was not all the same, as great many variant manuscripts show, and that there were errors and additions and omissions, and that Chirtsianity neither used the same books, nor preached the exact same faith for three centuries.

Just like today, they all preached Christ, their version of who and what he is. Sure, they all had some version of the Gospels, be it either the one where the Great Commission does not have the Triniatrian formula in it (as attested by Eusebius in the third century), which also the Book of Acts strongly supports, or be it the long or short versions of Luke's Gospel, or be it the Peshitta or the various 2nd century AD  attempts to bring LXX closer to the Hebrew text (Aquila, Symmachs, etc.), etc.

All this has been erased or eliminated, or conveniently forgotten, or even destroyed or buried somewhere, so as not to cause any 'confusion'.  And the myriad of other books, besides the "canonical" ones that were used by Christian apologetics were simply expunged as profane and purged from the canon, including the ones found in the oldest complete Bibles dating back to the 4th century, as if they never existed.

[FK: The Apostles taught orally with authority from Christ] [Who says?]Jesus did in His Great Commission.

And who wrote the Great Commission if not the very people who claim to teach with the authority of Christ!? This is like the Congress voting itself a pay raise.

Judaism never believed in the devil.

Moses was also an "observant Jew" (as Jesus approved of Moses' testimony about Him).

Of course he did. Written in retrospect by people vying desperately for some divine authority as they were being kicked out of synagogues as apostates and heretics by the Jewish community. Remember, this is "John" writing at the end of the first century as this was taking place. Besides, there is no Mosaic testimony of Jesus, in the minds of people capable of hyperbolic rationalizations.

If Moses testified about the correct Jesus then he testified about a Jesus who believed in the existence of satan. Therefore, the faiths of the OT righteous included knowledge of satan.

If is the operanat word here, FK. John 5:46 does not correspond to anything specific Moses wrote about Christ, unless of course one uses some pretty far out ideations. Judaism simply does not believe in satan, and never did. Apparently some heretical Jewish sects did under the influence of Zoriastrinaism.